Every turn on the road

Inauspicious looking clouds gather pace as they roll over Limerick City, and sounds of thunder rumble darkly through the skies. Sheets of rain batter the windows of the helicopter. Turn are trying to remain calm in the face of this storm, but their faces betray the tension. It appears as though we won’t be able to land this chopper. I never thought it would end up like this, staring my maker in the face in a helicopter over Limerick, as a band bicker, cry and pray beside me, muttering darkly that if they make it through this, they’re giving up the musician’s lifestyle to work with the homeless.

Okay, so I made all that up. I just always wanted to start a piece like that. It’s a Friday afternoon in Limerick, and the weather is simply being… weather. I’m hooking up with Turn alright, but they are arriving on good old fashioned four wheels. In a café on Roches Street, a comforting mix of David Kitt, Badly Drawn Boy and Mundy play from the radio. It being my first time in Limerick, I’m beginning to like this city, and it seems like a place that will welcome three noisy boys from Dublin with open arms.

This afternoon, singer Ollie Cole is in the company of Steve Wall from The Walls, he of the old fashioned four wheels ownership. The night before the pair had played in Galway, and it seems that a good time was had by all… maybe a bit too good.

“Having done the tour the week before, I was knackered doing the solo gig last night,” says Ollie. “I was ready for bed. I asked Steve if he was ready to head home for the night after the show, and he was like, ‘Oh no we can’t, I’ve to DJ now in the Warwick until 4am’.”

It would appear that Ollie is still getting to grips with the downside of touring – obscenely late nights are par for the course, as is the odd brazen proposition.

“I was talking to this girl last night and she was tearing her beer mat into tiny pieces. I kept talking away, until I looked down to realise she had spelt out ‘F-u-c-k-?’ with the bits of beer mat, facing towards me on the table. She didn’t even bat an eyelid, but it was kind of weird trying to keep a conversation going after that…”

Audacious groupie-types notwithstanding, the Turn’s recent Irish tour was a highpoint in a year largely spent recording and then gearing up for the release of the highly-anticipated Forward on their own Nurture Records. It had been a long, winding and somewhat potholed road since the release of their debut album Antisocial.

“The first album was very boisterous and assured, but a lot has happened since then, and Forward is a little more philosophical,” muses Ollie. “We are a bit more pragmatic now. Sounds weird, but it’s actually more positive than anything we’ve done so far. I know I became a better songwriter after the hard time we had, when I was humbled a bit. When your head is in your hands, it’s when you come up with the most honest stuff. It’s when we ended up with nothing, that’s when I was working on being a better musician, a better songwriter, a better everything.”

Although playing seven dates in as many nights was a task in itself, touring is very much at the forefront of the band’s agenda, and it’s an experience that Cole remembers fondly.

“It’s been the most successful tour we’ve done so far on our own, and each place was packed to capacity,” he enthuses. “I love touring with the lads, they’re my best friends and I get to spend time with them, and we have such a laugh”.

Thus far, the Forward album launch at Vicar St. has been the highlight of the year for Turn.
“Everyone was really scared because we never did a show of that size,” Ollie points out. “We wanted to make a statement by having the launch in somewhere different, and we booked Vicar St., and shit ourselves from the moment we put the phone down to the moment we walked onto the stage.

“I didn’t even look at the crowd when Mundy and Bell X1 were on, and I asked Terry (McGuinness, the band’s tour manager) how the crowd looked, and he said ‘Ah, there’s a few in, it’s not too bad, it’s about half full’. When I walked onstage and saw the place was rammed, we could feel the goodwill off the audience. I was blown away, it was actually really emotional, and I was a bit choked up”.

Back in Limerick there’s plenty of work to be done, and it’s a busy weekend before the boys can rest on their laurels. Tonight there’s a show in Dolan’s Warehouse, and the night after, the band are special guests at the IMRO showcase at the Village in Dublin. There is also a radio show to do at Wired FM before the soundcheck. Down at the station, Cole gives a frank interview to station manager Jeff Lambert, and just about charms everyone there as he holds court and regales them with tales of touring with the Frames and Mundy (all good fun), and his abrasive brushes with the music industry (not as much fun). They crew are so charmed in fact, that they help carry the band’s guitars and gear to the Warehouse.

At the venue we’re met by the remaining Turn boys and crew, who have arrived separately from Dublin. Drummer Ian Melady is a consummate gentleman, and the first to introduce himself to local support band The Riffs, thanking them warmly for opening for them. The events of the night are peppered with his infectious laughter; combined with Ollie’s caustic sense of humour, they make a good tag team.

More ardent fans of Turn will no doubt be familiar with the band’s guitar tech, tour manager and surrogate father Terry, who has been bigged up from the Turn stage on numerous occasions. Terry is arguably the commanding force behind any Turn touring activity, emanating a calming presence while keeping control of every situation. Soundman Phil Hayes is also on hand, as is Martin Quinn, an old friend of the band’s from Kells who is playing second guitar on this tour.

When it quickly became apparent that some of the noisier songs on Forward were not going to work as a three-piece, Martin seemed the perfect candidate.

“When I met Martin first, he was from this very upstanding family, and he was very straight,” recalls Ollie. “You should see the state of him now that we’ve got our hands on him”.

It would appear, however, that all eyes are on new bassist Alan Lee, having recently replaced Gavin Fox, who left to play bass for Scottish ‘already-theres’ Idlewild. Alan had some seriously stylish brothelcreepers to fill, yet he has more than risen to the challenge.

“Gavin played with an amazing amount of flair and had a huge presence, and I was worried about replacing him, but once we played with Alan, it was great, he was so quick to pick everything up,” notes Ollie.

Alan is a very soft-spoken, character who is refreshingly polite for a rock musician, yet exudes a kind of sexual potency that drives the entire band’s onstage presence and which, I find out later, is not at all lost on the ladies of Limerick city.

It’s almost unnecessary to ask Alan how he’s settling in to the band, as they have been friends for years, but he confirms that he’s having great fun being back in a band, having played in Skindive for a number of years.

I enquire as to how Gavin is doing as a member of Idlewild. Normally band member departures are rife with animosity – not so, it seems, in this case, at least not any longer.

At first it was a really hard time for us,” Ollie admits. “Then last time he was home, we decided that we needed to talk about it, as toward the end there was a fair bit of underlying tension between us all. In Dublin, he’d be home for a few days and we’d never get the chance to have a proper chat, to wish him the best and apologise for the bad feelings, so the three of us went down to Kells with the main purpose of drinking ourselves stupid. He was saying ‘it’s great being in Idlewild, but I really miss you, and there’s times when it’s hard’, and we were just being honest and frank. We went back to Ian’s house, got out the guitars and started to play music, songs that each of us had sung, and even old ones that we’d written together. Now we’re on the phone all the time!”.

During the soundcheck, the band play Led Zeppelin covers to warm up. “Ever played in a band, Tanya?” enquires Ollie. I decide against telling him about various outfits that never made it past the garage or the bassline of ‘Come As You Are’. “That’s a shame… you won’t like it when we drag you up to play with us so” he deadpans. He’s only half-joking, I think. Hmm. After soundcheck, we all sit down to dinner. Much idiocy ensues – camera posing, gossiping, balancing of silverware on noses. We’re particularly entertained by a photo of Paddy Casey amid portraits of great Irish writers like Yeats, Synge, Wilde and Beckett. The band aren’t expecting a large turnout at Dolan’s tonight, owing largely to the fact that Limerick is a student town and school’s out for the summer, so they’re out to have a good time. No pressure, like.

Their concerns about a paltry turnout are, as it turns out, unfounded. There is a healthy attendance of fans, locals and the plain curious. Various members of local acts Woodstar and The Driven are here too.

“I didn’t think anyone would come, and here you are all, so thank you!” says Ollie from the stage, genuinely chuffed at the turnout. And they display their appreciation by delivering one hell of a set. ‘Ain’t It A Love’, ‘In Position’, ‘Summer Song’, ‘Beretta’, ‘Another Year Over’ all sound perfect for a Friday night’s entertainment, and are delivered in the breakneck style that the band are becoming well-known for. Where it seemed that the band were riding on a crest of a wave of fear and adrenaline for their Vicar Street show, it’s a different, more self-assured band that have landed in Limerick. Granted, it’s a smaller audience, but each one of them sings back the lyrics of every song, be it an old live favourite or a new album track.

After the gig, we all kick back in the Dolan’s bar and sink a few well-deserved pints. Most of the crowd have stayed behind too, including the crew from Wired FM who were in attendance for the show. While the band talk to everyone, a few girls confide drunkenly in me that they think that various Turn members are the embodiment of male physical perfection. I laugh, then sit back as the usual aftershow flirting ritual unfolds, in this case without much outcome. I wonder if this is a regular fixture at Turn aftershows.

“Actually, Terry gets all the female attention, we’re well out of the picture half the time,” says Ian.

In the obscenely small hours of the morning, we start to retire to bed, beerily hugging half of the appreciative crowd as we head out the door, the band thanking everyone profusely for coming to the gig and shouting promises of an imminent return. As we pass out the door, Ollie whispers sweetly, “I thought I’d be used to the aftershow malarkey by now, and the crowds and everything, meeting the fans, but I still love it really. I do need to learn how not to stay out so late though…” Having spent about five hours chatting with fans and well-wishers, he may have a point.

Some hours later, we are back on the road to Dublin. True to form, Terry is responsible for getting the show on the road before 10am, and it’s a task most wouldn’t envy him. I’m in the car with Martin, Alan and Ollie, while Terry and Ian take the gear back in a trusty looking, weathered van.

While heads are fuzzy and tired this morning, the in-car sound system soothes everyone – Weezer, The Thrills, Rufus Wainwright and Metallica albums are played back to back until they reach the Village for soundcheck. It transpires much later that night that the band went home to sleep after the soundcheck, and Ollie didn’t wake up until 10pm. Their onstage time at the Village? 10.30pm. Turns out that the band walked straight into the venue and right onto the stage.

Now, my friends, that’s entertainment.